Wallin, Duffy, Brazeau Feeling The Sting Of A Demagogue

Are Senators Pamela Wallin, Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau acting like spoiled children who have been caught doing something wrong and not liking that they are being punished? Are they just whining and throwing temper tantrums, or have they in truth been thrown under the bus by Prime Minister Harper and the Senate for political expediency? Are Wallin, Duffy and Brazeau feeling the sting of a demagogue that they help into power and convinced Canadians to vote for? I wonder if the three have learned anything about due process, or if anyone of them have learned that real people get hurt when their rights are sidestepped for expediency and due process of law is taken from them, or do they only see their cases as wrong and the denial of due process to the 450 Sri Lankan refugees for example, as still okay?

Given the fact that the independent audit done at the Senate’s request by a firm that the Senate chose said yes they wrongly put in for expenses they were not entitled to and that they should pay those monies back, but said also that they could not find any reason to believe or prove that any of the senators had intentionally violated the public trust, or willfully filed incorrect expense refunds, is the harsh penalty being voted on represent justice being served? The independent audit report also said that the rules governing refundable expenses was full of grey areas, easily misinterpreted.

Great stock has been put in how the money was paid back especially in mike Duffy’s case and I guess I do not get it. As long as it was not paid for by the tax payer what difference does it make who privately helped mike Duffy? What I am really having a hard time with though is that each of these senators have proof that they sought the advice of senate higher-ups as to whether or not claiming the expenses was correct and they were all given the green light. Prime Minister Harper stood up in the house of commons and said that he went over all of Pamela Wallin‘s expenses personally and found them all to be in order.

If we leave out what the independent audit had to say ands the fact that these senators seemed to have had the approval for their expenses before the filed for the reimbursements and say that too bad they should have known better and should be punished anyway then the question is if they have been found to not have intentionally done anything wrong than what is an appropriate penalty for what they have done. Obviously repaying the money back is not the answer. Ruining their personal and professional reputations and disgracing them world-wide, does not seem to be enough. The Prime Minister throwing them out the Conservative party of Canada caucus is not enough of a punishment, so I ask what is enough?

I thought as did the auditors that if they unintentionally filed their expenses wrong that they should have to pay it back the loop-hole closed in the rules, but never did I imagine that they would be punished in the manner that they are being punished without due process, because (a) The Senate of Canada is trying to save face and as it attempts to preserve the dignity of the senate by suspending without pay. (b) The Prime Minister would throw them from caucus after claiming that at least one of the senators had filed correctly.

I think that the 3 senators were guilty of arrogance and should have repaid the monies in question right away once they found out that they had done something wrong innocently perhaps but wrong none the less. I do not know how they figured that just because they believed that they were right meant that they did not have to repay the monies. The fact that they were in fact bilking the tax payers out of money should have been enough for them to state they were sorry, it was a mistake on their part and they would be returning the ill-gotten gains immediately, as it was never their intention to do anything illegal. Instead they maintained that they found a loophole that allowed them to rip off Canadians to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars and that they intended to fight tooth and nail to keep their ill-gotten gains. Now although this is not a very nice way for a senator to act and will did not endear them to voters and did cause their party embarrassment and political percentage points, the truth of the matter is that they had broken no Canadian laws and so again we must ask above and beyond them paying the money back were they deserving of any other punishment and is the punishment they got in the best interest of seeing justice served, or was this really a bad case of taking a hammer to swat a fly.

Lastly let us begin to consider due process and were the accused given it in this case. As much as it pains me to say so being no fan of any of them, I do not think that they were. In fact I think that they were singled out and offered up as sacrificial lambs by the senate and by Steven Harper to save their own political hides. What are the odds that 3 conservative senators hand-picked by the Prime Minister found guilty of defrauding the Canadian people would all turn on him and publicly him and accuse him of using them and then abandoning them for no other reason but to look innocent of any wrong doing himself and deflect attention to them instead of him? I think that they because they have been betrayed by the leadership in the conservative side of the Senate and have been thrown under the bus by the Prime Minister as well there is the small matter of a thing called due process of law that they are being denied by his order.

I do think however that there could be a silver lining in this whole stupid affair and I would hope that maybe in the future when bills are put before the remaining senators, that they would seriously consider:

All of the implications of bills that would seek to deny anyone due process of the law and that they would think twice before voting it through without seriously considering is the law a just and fair law and is this how Canadians act.

That without due process of law we have become what we say we hate, a nation where the law means nothing and can be changed at the whim of the government, or ruler of the day.

That maybe it is not so good to rubber stamp laws a bill that would stop unionised activities, force people back to work, keep immigrants in jail all without due process of law.

That they should not be so easily persuaded to follow the party line and hopefully in the future vote their consciences and what they know to be right, just and Canadian instead.

I think that the Harper government has proven the old adage that states, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely” Everyone should be moving to reduce the power of a Prime Minister with a majority government and put into play a mechanism to remove a Prime Minister who is not acting within the Canadian Charter of Rights, or who is caught consistently misleading parliament and Canadians. Harper right now has more power than any dictator and is behaving like one. Question: Does democracy begin with the calling of an election and end after it? I ask this question, because that it what it looks like to me if a government gets in with a majority, omnibus budget bill, time allocated debates used to cut short debates, non compliance with access to information regulations, putting sole power of deciding issues in the hands of individual ministers who are controlled by the Prime Minister.

Now that Steven Harper has opened Pandora’s Box and revealed to all political parties the full extent of the power that a majority government has at its disposal, how many governments and their leaders do you think will be able to resist using the full extent of a majority government now that it has been done? Now that the line has been successfully crossed and laws have been changed to give the Prime Minister of Canada elected with a majority government the power of a dictator over a people subdued by democratic values and principle who are not predisposed to using violence to seek political reform, will any political party ever change the laws back, or create new laws to better represent true democratic practice in government? The line between democracy and demagoguery has been crossed and I fear that without people protesting in the streets, maybe even refusing to go to work and virtually bringing all activity, all economic gain in this country to a screeching halt, every time there is a majority government elected no matter what level, no matter what political stripe demanding that they do what is best for Canadians. I am a Canadian who is tired of seeing much-needed changes delayed and denied Canadians because opposition parties are rejecting things that are good for Canadians, because they feel that is what an opposition party is supposed to do; I want to see the end of such clearly partisan voting and start seeing more bi-partisan voting that best reflects what is good for all Canadians. If we the citizen, we the voter do not grab the bull by the horns I think that we will see politicians, leaders and parties step outside the spirit of a democracy and democratic principles more and more and we will once again be thrust into a democratic farce, such as we a living with now, or in the times of minority government get nothing done, because of partisan posturing? I think that the choice is ours. What is up Canada?